Jean Françaix: Ode à la Gastronomie
Jean Françaix sent up the French relationship with food and dining in this sumptuous 12-voice score from 1953: it’s just so “French”. Using chefs’ 1834 bible Physiology of Taste, by Jean Brillat-Savarin, as his starting point, Françaix’s louche approach covers everything from the erotic power of the black truffle to pianists who love themselves.
JS Bach: Coffee Cantata
The coffee houses in 18th-century Germany left their mark on art in Bach’s Coffee Cantata, in which a father tries to wean his caffeine-dependent daughter on to men instead: “How sweet coffee tastes, more delicious than a thousand kisses and milder than muscatel wine.” This, by Ton Koopman and the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra & Choir, is a nicely staged version of the mini drama.
Francis Poulenc: Hôtel
“I don’t want to work, I want to smoke.” This is a Greta Garbo-esque poem, with the writer wanting to be left alone with his pipe. It’s not very PC, but in less than two minutes this perfect song encapsulates the importance of the small pleasure in the madness of la vie quotidienne.
Carl Orff: Olim Lacus Colueram
From Orff’s Carmina Burana, in which a medieval swan sings as she is roasted on a spit to the accompaniment of a roasting bassoon. The range is that of an alto, but Orff instructs the tenor to sing it; the extreme high notes for that voice sound suitably tortured.
Henry Purcell: If Music Be the Food of Love
Purcell, the genius of setting the English language, liked Shakespeare’s text enough to set it several times. My favourite is this one, subtly sung by Emma Kirkby. Sure, food is only used as a metaphor, that when the music is this good, but that’s enough for me.
Luciano Berio: Cries of London
In the 1970s the Italian modernist wrote a set of character pieces based on texts inspired by Orlando Gibbons’ 17th-century settings about food and London street cries. The fourth song is about garlic, not as a flavour provider but as an early antibiotic. This is a classic recording from Swingle II.
Clément Janequin: Les Cris de Paris
Janequin was writing comic programme music at the time of Rabelais, 150 years before Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. This one is like a walk through a Renaissance market; every type of trader flogs their wares with increasing insistence, wonderfully caught by the Ensemble Clément Janequin. Like Bruegel with the sound turned up.
Bernstein: La Bonne Cuisine
A late 19th-century cookbook by Emile Dumont with recipes set to music by Leonard Bernstein in 1947, three years before Françaix’s gastronomic ode. Plum Pudding, Ox Tails, a savoury Turkish pudding and “quick rabbit stew” all get highly characterful treatment for soprano and piano.
Monty Python: Spam
Monterverdi, my favourite composer, didn’t write any music about food, so here’s the next best thing. As well as the spam itself, the surreal involvement of a choir of Vikings does it for me. Watch the whole sketch, or listen to the specially recorded 35sec full male-voice choir version.
Nat King Cole: Frim Fram Sauce
“I don’t want French fried potatoes,” sings Nat King Cole in this famous version of Joe Ricardel and Redd Evans’ song (or indeed anything on the menu but the “frim-fram” sauce). Various writers have speculated what this might actually mean, but as with many great songs, it doesn’t seem to matter that much.
• I Fagiolini’s Amuse-Bouche – French Choral Delicacies is out this week on Decca
